Oscars: Romania Selects 'The Fixer' for Foreign-Language Category

Adrian Sitaru's film is about an aspiring journalist meeting moral obstacles in a story about a young prostitute.

Romania has selected Adrian Sitaru's drama The Fixer as its candidate for the best foreign-language film award at the Oscars.

The film, a Romanian-French co-production, follows the fortunes of Radu (Tudor Aaron Istodor), a young trainee journalist at a French press agency in the Romanian capital Bucharest. When Radu comes across the story of an underage prostitute who has been repatriated from France, he is driven by ambition to prove himself as a reporter. But the further he follows the story — tracing the girl, who has gone into hiding, to a remote nunnery, the more he begins to question the moral boundaries of journalism.

Istador won the best actor award for his role in the film at last year's Les Arcs European Film Festival in France.

The film, inspired by true events, had its international premiere in Toronto last year and also screened earlier this year at Los Angeles' South East Europe Film Festival.

Scripted by Claudia and Adrian Silisteanu (who is also director of photography), The Fixer was produced by Anamaria Antoci, Adrian Silisteanu and Jean des Foret. MPM Film in Paris is handling international sales.

Romania is a regular contributor to the foreign-language Oscar race, though it has only once been nominated, in 2013 for Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills. It has never won an Oscar.